Posted
by
CmdrTacoon Tuesday December 30, 2003 @01:01PM
from the but-thats-so-tiny dept.

sdimbert writes "Rumors of a new, smaller, "iPodJr" have been floating around the RumorSites for a few weeks (as well a here at Slashdot). But now, the rumors have gained credibility and become more substantial. London's Evening Standard reports today (30 Dec 03) that "Apple has announced a cut-price mini version" of the iPod, "costing 65 [~115 USD], which will be able to store 800 songs." Despite the assertion that Apple "announced" the product, there is no mention of it at their official News Page or their product page for the iPod."

This is going to pretty much kill in the low endFlash-based player market. I was looking at Fry's this weekend, and everything in the $49-99 range only came w/ 128MB, upgradeable to 640. Even assuming that the low-end Apple mini-iPod is only 1-2GB, it's got those other players beat by a mile, and hey, it works w/ iTunes!

When you can get me a DVD recorder/MP3 player that fits in my pocket, costs $100, and is super simple to use via iTunes, then sure, I'm all over it.

In the meantime though, my money goes to the R&D demigods over at Apple. The fact that it's miniature firewire storage ALONE would make it worth a hundred bucks to me, but it's also designed by the current most successful and easy to use mp3 player?

There hasn't been any official announcement yet; MacWorld keynote [macrumors.com] is January 6. Rumors are circulating of new, smaller iPods with 2gb and 4gb capacities and a lower price. There are some mockups and pictures here. [sejus.com]

Smart playlists. When you have few thousands songs in your pocket, organization of this library becomes the main issue - or you have to dig the iPod out of your pocket (backpack etc.) any time you want to change the damned album, as if you'd still use some last-century walkman. It's like the Internet search engine: even if you know that a given information is somewhere on the Web, the main question is can you find it quickly and easily.

"What is so wonderful about iTunes? I don't want to use any program to transfer songs to my MP3 player. I want it to mount as an external drive so I can transfer any song, MP3 or otherwise, onto the player."

I'm not a heavy user of iTunes so I can't enumerate it's "wonderful" features, but I can address the issue of using it instead of manually dragging songs to a mounted drive. Maybe I am a freak for feeling this way, but I don't want anything to do with filesystems. I don't want to touch files, drag fi

Ok, I'll give you that, but (I don't exacty know what I am talking about here, so please feel free to enlighten me) isn't MP3 encoding done via the same algorighm/codec no matter who writes the wrapper?

Nope. The LAME encoder is different and far superior to other encoders. Different encoders use different psychoacoustic models to determin which parts to throw away. Quality varies greatly between encoders. There are terrible ones like Bladeenc and Xing, which have quality more on par with Real Audio, and superior encoders like LAME which have quality more on par with Ogg Vorbis.

LAME is the only good way to encode. Anything else will produce inferior MP3s.

iPod's may be mountable as Firewire drives but you can't just dump music to it. The iPod has a database that keeps track of all of the songs and playlists currently on the player. If you don't update the db then it's as if the songs never got transfered. Luckily the format is either open or easily reversed because there are programs like ephpod that can rebuild it.

Except that you lose the option of having playlists, the player requires more power per song played (the DVD's gonna have a _way_ higher rotational moment of inertia, so spinup and spindown are more costly), and it's still not as iTunes-compatible. Sure, the hypothetical DVD-player could still use iTunes, but now that we're up to a DVD-player, it's _going_ to be more expensive, esp. considering most of the rumors are fora sub-$100 device.

Someone on macslash.org was speculating it could be cheaper DRAM memory. Basically, when the battery goes out, you lose contents. But big deal. With USB 2 or firewire, you plug it in, it charges and redownloads the songs in no time. No need for expensive flash memory.

This is going to pretty much kill in the low endFlash-based player market. I was looking at Fry's this weekend, and everything in the $49-99 range only came w/ 128MB, upgradeable to 640. Even assuming that the low-end Apple mini-iPod is only 1-2GB, it's got those other players beat by a mile, and hey, it works w/ iTunes!

I just got a 10GB iPod for Christmas. If it were not given to me, I would never have purchased it. I have wanted an iPod since they were announced, but $300 is more than I think an MP3 player is worth. I looked at the sub $100 MP3 players several times, but none of them were as good as the iPod. It's just not even close (even when you ignore the storage capacity). If Apple truly delivers this product (1GB iPod for $100), it will be a smashing success. I think that I am not alone in looking for a low end iPod (of course, I'm looking no more).

the ipod has been out for a while now and given its fairly long use-life just about everybody who was willing to get one at $300 has probably done so already.

now apple is gunning to pick up the people who wanted one but balked at the price point. kinda like publishers who put out the hardcover for the the $30 crowd and then eight months later release a paperback for the $7 folks.

Chalk me up too. I'm currently in the market for some sort of personal audio device, and would *love* an iPod, but can't possibly justify that sort of expense. (Life gets expensive with a house, car, family to support...)

A cheap, lower-capacity model would be perfect. I don't need 10 or 20 gigs of storage - I only have about 5 gigs of mp3s as it is. Sure, the extra space would be nice, but I'd be happy enough with deleting/uploading some music every fews days or so if it means the difference between afford

kinda like publishers who put out the hardcover for the the $30 crowd and then eight months later release a paperback for the $7 folks.

That analogy is absolutely correct and I applaud you for making it. However the specifics are a bit dated as to how the book market now functions.

It's true, that was the way the publishing industry worked a little over a decade ago, but things are slightly different now.

There used to be two different kinds of books - hardcovers (designed to take a beating) and mass markets (designed to be thrown away). Mass markets were approx. 1/3 the price of hardcovers.

But the publishers started to realize that there was another category of book buyer out there - people who wanted books to last but didn't want to pay hardcover prices. So the Trade Paperback was invented. Trades cost about half the price of a hardcover and are more sturdily constructed than mass markets.

Current books rarely hit the $7 price point you mentioned unless they're niche markets (sci fi, horror and romance in particular), they're INSANELY popular (Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler and the like) or they're classics (ie, in the public domain).

This isn't really a problem except that in the last few years book quality (the physical object, not the writing - that's a completely different rant) has decreased dramatically, so people are buying trade paper because of the illusion of permanence (and because they're less weight to tote around. Books are still primarily a portable medium). This feels kinda cheap to me.

Like I said, you weren't wrong by any means and the analogy still holds. Just being...well, a booknerd.:)

No, it won't. But I still don't get playlists. I don't get full iTunes compatibility. I've got less capacity than the rumored 2GB unit, and I have to change disks. I've also got to haul around a honking gigantic (by comparison) CD-player that doesn't fit in any pocket I own.

That's why I find the announcement hard to believe. Apple prices *above* commodity as a MARKETING STRATEGY (gee, it costs more, it must be better!). If apple were to make cheap IPODS to compete with other players (apple does not compete on price) that would be a huge shift in Apples overall strategy.

I disagree, to some degree Apple's premium pricing as a marketing strategy is making a virtue out of necessity. Apple computers are a niche product, they lost the option of true mass marketting and big marketshare years ago. When the PC market exploded they chose to maintain their fat profit margins rather than maintaining or even expanding their market share - it's pretty clear that it was the wrong decision. They hauled in the cash for a while but they became more and more a niche player. At this point they're stuck in that niche. Cutting their margins to the bone wouldn't produce that many new customers.

The MP3 player market is a whole new ball game, and a second chance. Apple is again the market leader in an emerging market (just as they were in the long ago days of the Apple II). This time I think they are going to go for marketshare. They have to maintain the quality that people expect from the brand, and for that reason they're ever going to go for the very bottom of the bargain barrel. But if they can use superior industrial design/engineering and relationships with vendors to beat their competitors on price while still delivering high quality they are going to go for it.

A $100 minipod is definately a possibility either with a Flash a HD based system but my money is on a HD system with more or less the same look and feel as the original iPod. Apple isn't going to bring to market a product that lacks in design, usability, and ease of use. That's just not Apple.
This might be a historacle moment for Apple, releasing something price competitive. I think Steve took a business course this summer and realised that they have such a good product on their hand that HE even knows he has to play the game.
A 1" 2-4 G cheap HD seems very likely, it's already being done, and I am sure that Steve could convince some company to let them go at a good price because of the demand that exists for the iPods. He's got a lot of barganing chips and he'll use them. Remember, this is a guy who convinced the stingy money-sucking music whores to get on board with his idea and now look what happend. Coke and Walmart music stores? C'mon, what's next, a Staples or Home Depot online store?
I think people are going to fall in line with Mr. Steve, he's proven time and time again that he can change the world of digital media wether it be through computers, software, or peripherals. Apple is always the first ones on the field ready to play, they might not make the most money, but they start the game. Why wouldn't a company take a chance and be the first to market with them, best price, best product, and dominate, all for a little price break on HD's?
People believe in him now, and his reality distortion field.
Hi mom.

"This might be a historacle moment for Apple, releasing something price competitive."
All of Apple's hardware (and software) is price competitive. Apple simply doesn't sell low-end cheapy products, but of the products they do sell... they are VERY price competitive.

Damn skippy. I've been looking for a portable MP3* player recently, as I will soon have a job that requires frequent travel. However, $399 was/still is a bit steep. The ability to use it as a portable firewire HD is nifty, but useless for my usage. Anyway, $100, 800 songs, that's definately a keeper. I may have that in my change can.:)

It all started with thinksecret posting about the rumored mini-ipods. Then came macrumors, which simply linked to thinksecret as their source. Then it was slashdot, which again linked to thinksecret. Then it was macrumors again, which said that it had more sources (they did not disclose them). And then some London newspapers picked up the rumors, and posted them as such. This becomes news on macrumors.com again (see page 2). And now we are back on slasldot.

I wonder if this new iPod will continue acting as a firewire HD. Or if it will work with the iPod accessories. So many questions. As others have posted, this gadget would essentially drive others out of business. I would have never guessed an iPod could be delivered at such a low price. Wouldn't the HD on the unit alone make up for 90% of the price?

The Rio Nitrus is 1.5gb and has sold for as low as $150. The price on these mini hard drives is dropping fast as IBM and others continue to refine the manufacturing process. I doubt Apple will earn as much margin as they are on the higher ends, but these Jr's will look attractive to buyers such as myself who don't need a 40 gig brick.

Apple hasn't said anything official at all about Mini iPods, and usually they kick thier Legal team into action when "half true" Rumors hit the web. The idea that they have done nothing at all makes this seem like they have resigned to let the leak become publicity, or free advertising.

As much as I'd love to have a 20g iPod to hold all of my music on, I'd be very happy with a resonably priced (about $200) iPod that will hold 2-4gig of music. 256mb flash players just are not big enough for the price.

I got the armband holder [marware.com] from Marware [marware.com] and used to (before school started) run several miles a day with no problems. Watch it when it rains though because the one time I went when there was a lot of humidity in the air, at the end of the run the iPod sort of seized up for a few minutes. It reset itself and was fine, but that was a pretty scary few minutes.

Yes. to all your questions... if you have itunes you can set it up to stream to other computers on your subnet (house) or you can actually authorize those computers to use that music as well. I think the limit is five computers. If you sell your computer you can de-authorize the music on that system then re-authroize it on your new computer.
It also "jogs" well..
Congrats. You got the best digital music expericence on the planet.
(Be sure to sign up for new music on tuesday emails from apple. as well.)

As for iTunes, you can copy the songfiles from machine to machine if you like (I currently have my iTunes library mirrored on three machines), as long as you simply click "authorize this computer" when it prompts you and enter your Applestore password to play encrypted files.

As for streaming, you still have to authorize the computer to play back your encrypted (purchased) content, but the files stay put, removing redundancy and, if you disable the Windows firewall (or open up whatever ports) it automagical

It's gonna look like heaven in thermoplastic, and everyone here is going to want one.

What makes no sense is the timing. When a mainstream site makes an assertion about this sort of thing Apple is usually within days of release. If that were the case, why not launch before christmas.

I don't think we'll see this for some time. Previous rumors put stripes and patterns on the case. I suspect we'll see a Pepsi branded model some time in Feburary.

Super keen idea we'll probably never see:Use the printing technology used on the blue dalmation and flower power iMacs, and tie in with iPhoto to let buyers have their photos molded into the case of their mini-ipod, rather than just simple laser engraving.

Because they were busy selling regular iPods at $300-500 a pop. Clear out all that inventory, take the profit, then announce a new product at MacWorld. Simple profit maximization; a pre-Christmas announcement would have hurt current iPod sales as people demanded the Jr. rather than the big boy (which may or may not have been available). If they couldn't get their hands on one, they'd just wait until after Christmas. Meanwhile, iPods sit dusty and alone on the shelves. Post- you have enough time to ramp up production and meet demand. People that were going to buy an iPod already have one, so you're not taking a loss.

The people that are going to buy this (in DROVES) are the people that looked longingly at an iPod but were much too broke to buy one (read: ME and several million other people).

Another point is that I'm betting Apple wouldn't be able to keep up with demand if they started selling them. $100(ish) is a VERY important price point for lots of people. It's a heck of a lot easier to rationalize a $100 investment rather than a $300 investment. If such a machine is produced, it'll sell almost as quickly as the iTMS sold it's first tracks, if Apple releases it with a big enough splash.

Look at some of the past product releases (pick a keynote, any keynote): The product is announced, and or

On Christmas 2002, my wife got me a GBA, Metroid Fusion, along with a light attachment. I was enthused to say the least, and enjoyed it for about two weeks...

Until Nintendo announced, on January 6th, 2003 [gameboy-advance-sp.com] that their Gameboy SP was coming in February, complete with the why-didn't-they-include-it-in-the-first-place backlight and rechargable battery.

To put it mildly, I was fucking upset. Who would rather have the non-backl

Apple has announced hey? Despite not owning them, I remember when the press said apple has "announced" 68060 based macs. I remember when apple "announced" that their games machine was selling in the US market. I remember when they "announced" the release of a PPC 620 64-bit mac.

"announced" in quotes simply because the press want to get it right before anyone else, and throw guesses and suppositions around regarding beta or even non existent hardware.

I went to update the firmware on my iPod, and... like, it went all 'beep-beep-beep-beep-beep' and started to smoke. That was kind of... a bummer. So I check my funds and realize that I don't have the cash to get a new one because I bought my week's worth of... herbs. So, I go to the store and see that they released this iPodJr, and I was all like... cool. So, I was able to still listen to Jerry while I was studying. That's like... cool.

It can't be a true Apple product if you don't have to sacrifice your first born for it... I just don't believe it. I may eat these words later, but for a 115USD a 1-2gb player that is smaller than the current ipod? Flash memory is certainly not that cheap, and as for hard disks, even a used microdrive goes for more than that. Start throwing in Li-ion cells, LCDs, apple's usual cosmetic frills and you've got $$$ just piling up. Buying in bulk will surely reduce costs but what kind of profit are we talking here catering to the low end, this seems too unlike apple?

When the first iPod came out, it actually cost less than buying just the HD directly from Toshiba!!! So looking at the new smaller Toshiba drive cost might very well lead to a good estimate as to the price point a small iPod might arrive at.

I think Apple can cut some amazing deals based on projected volume of orders.

I'm sure there's some truth in this rumor, but isn't it possible that some "hack journalist" at the Evening Standard read these rumors (maybe even at Slashdot, if so HI!) and is just giving them more credence than they should receive so he or she scores "a scoop". It wouldn't be the first time a journo has been duped in this manner!

Lets see, 800 songs, average of around 3 minutes a song, about 1MB per minute for average quality works out to be about 2400MB. Refactor figures for the obligatory "Best Case Scenario" marketing droid math that works out to be a 32MB Flash player containing short songs recorded at 32kbit/s!

In reality it sounds like a 1.5BG player using AAC to fit 800 songs on it. That's a definite buy at that price! BUt if it sounds to good to be true, chances are it is.

Or maybe it is a simple Flash player with a compact flash card? Inserting 2GB CF card would allow for the capacity for 800 songs yet still keep the initial price of the player low.

I was more intrigued by the announcement of the "iPod Micro," which supposedly makes even -more- music available than the regular iPods. It's also got some kind of wireless technology built in, which is something that people have been speculating about forever. What's odd though is that it's not 802.11b/g or Bluetooth, but rather something called "frequency modulation" in an entirely different spectrum.

They said the memory technology was called "station presets" -- anyone know what this means?

When the original iPods came out, people complained that the price was too high and no one would buy one. The iPod's success shows there are a lot of people with more disposable income than the critics thought. Still, $300 - $400 is more money than many people could afford/justify for an mp3 player. A $100 price point would make it much more attractive to middle-income people. I think I can probably rationalize the purchase of a $100 mp3 player to myself;-) (especially an iPod).

I'd like an mp3/aac/wav/aiff player/recorder 'for the rest of us' -- one to replace my minidisc. I want to be able to record analog to aiff with a line/mic in, I want firewire external disk capability, I want iTunes ease and smart playlists, and I want to slap on accessories like fm transmitters (or a preamp, see above). I only need about 2 gb of storage and I only have about $200CDN to spend on a base unit.

Oh, and I want 12 hours of playtime out of two rechargeable AA batteries, like my minidisc (which al

I dislike the "# Songs" metric (1GB = 200 songs). I understand that a portion of the demographic they're targeting might not know what a megabyte represents, but undoubtedly it's a small percentage of their target market. 800 Songs means little to me, as many songs I listen to are 10 or 15 minutes long. Some songs might be no more than 30 seconds. I also may want to store some songs at higher or lower bitrates than others. Given all the variables that vary within a "Song", I'd rather discuss the exact data capacity in Bytes.

It is intended to target people who want a digital music player but do not need one which can hold music from more CDs then most people could ever own

What are they talking about? "Most People" could easily own hundreds of CDs. I am not even a "collector" but since CDs have been around since the 1980's I have over 600... Now do I listen to all of them? Why - yes.... But that's a different discussion... I think many people have more than 800 songs, just no need (spelled not-enough-m

Someone submits a rumor too two rumor boards, they report it, look at each other and say 'if they're reporting it too, then it's probably true!"

c|net and others write 'could be...' stories, and then one Macophilic reporter at a random paper (in this case, 'This is London', that bastion of Mac integrity?) writes that Apple 'has announced' the thing, though they say its 'unveiling' will be in a week.

Then Slashdot comes in and says the rumors are now probably true because an 'established paper' claims it as

This sounds like a good thing, but I heard that they're going to replace the regular buttons with chiclet buttons, and you'll have to attach bulky sidecars to it if you want any kind of expansion capability. Plus the headphones will only communicate with the main unit via a poorly designed IR port.

On the plus side, I heard they'll have some great games for it, like "Jumpman", "Zyll" and "King's Quest" by some company called "Sierra On-Line".

As soon as apple ships the ipod jr at the price points suggested then they will probably take all 5 top selling spots on the list. Not many people are going to be buying a "iriver" with 128mbs when they can get a iPod that holds 800 songs for the same price AND get the itunes music store AND the ID of ipods AND the ease of use that apple gives them......

The 10GB Apple iPod ($299) reportedly edged out the cheaper 128MB Digitalway ($140) in overall sales, with the remainder of the iPod models also being well represented:

Jobs statement ( if true ) is rather silly, as I own enough to fill more then 40gb easily.. ( over 500 cds + countless LP's from the 70s/80s ) I cant imagine I'm that much different then many ( especially if you can drop 500 bucks on an Ipod )

However 2gb is more than useable on the road.. as who needs to *carry* around more then 30 some odd albums at a time..

If they really do hit the streets @ 100 USD count me in for 2 ( in case apple is reading/. )

...is that while everyone is salivating (justifiably) at the possibility of lower-cost iPods, that no one seems to be wondering much about the other new hardware Apple may announce at the Macworld keynote on 1/6, especially an updated, faster, cheaper G5, and God knows what else that the CEO may surprise us with.

Yep, a good year for Jobs, and good year for Apple and Pixar as well. Give the man a cookie.

from an insider: say, hypothetically, that apple had developed a significantly better (albeit lossy) compression scheme and coupled with a good sized compact flash type storage device were able to squeeze 800 songs onto much less than 2-4GB.. say 1GB;) - remember, you heard it here first..

I seriously doubt the $115 iPod will look exactly like the 10gb model, but with a smaller hard drive (and form factor). It makes sense that the $115 iPod will lack some of the features that the higher end models have. This will better enable apple to upsell people to higher end iPods, and believe me, they want to do that.

So what could we potentially lose from the iPod?
- Firewire. It seems unlikely apple would cut their technology from a product, but this is something obvious to cut. These cheapo iPods are going to be heavily focussed on iTunes users, which are largely windows based. USB could be good enough.
- Built in rechargable battery. A good way to lower production cost is to make the unit require conventional batteries.
- The unit interface. The iPod's screen and dial for selecting music are great. A good way to cut production cost would be to remove these features.

In summary, my expectation is that apple will design their iPod jrs without many of the features which we have come to expect from iPod products. This will lower their production costs, and provide additional motivation for people to buy higher priced units.

Apple doesn't need to provide any of these features to sell iPod Jrs, the larger storage capacity, iTunes, and apple chic design will ensure these things just fly off the shelves.

Me and the other main geek here at work have been going round-and-round with this for a couple of days. There's no way this is true, much as I might wish it were. It's very simple: What flash medium is out there in the 1GB-4Gb range that costs less than $100? If there is one, it's impossible to find on the web.

What are they doing, repurposing all those old 1-4GB hard disks that people are tossing out? Have they invented some new cheaper flash memory? If so, that's major. A lot more than IpodJrs are gonna come out of that if that's true. Somebody want to help me out here? Anyone? Bueller?

So, I think that by this time next year (and hopefully that actually means about 10 months from now, so Apple can actually get the damn things out the door *BEFORE* the Holiday season...), we'll actually get the iPod that we should have had in the first place?

Don't get me wrong, I love the iPod, and I actually have an original 5GB unit (which I did *not* pay full price for).

As we all know, HDDs don't go down in price, they just get bigger, because it costs about the same amount of money to produce a unit regardless of capacity. That's why the newer iPods with bigger drives cost the same as the original while having double the capacity. The iPod would be cheaper if Apple could find a way to build it cheaper while still maintaining the design goals.

So I'm thinking that if we see a ~2GB ePod/iPod Jr. at MWSF next week, then by next year, we should be seeing a ~5GB unit for the same price. By that time, Toshiba should have ramped up the new 1" drives to double the capacity or more.

I do think the predictions of ~100USD are maybe a bit optimistic. For what you're getting, it sounds to me like ~150-200USD is more likely. As in $149 for a 1GB model, and $199 for a 2GB...then next year we might see 2GB and 5GB models at the same prices, while the iPods step up even further in features and capacity at *their* same price points.

Personally, I'd have no trouble justifying $199 for a 2GB iPod, as long as it retains the same feature set as the current iPods do. (Read: FireWire drive capability).

Of course, what I'd really like to see, as a musician, is a multi-track iPod Studio about the size of a VHS tape with the inputs of a Digidesign Mbox (mmm...Focusrite). Since Apple owns eLogic, this shouldn't be too hard. Think of a cross between a Digidesign Mbox and a Digi 002 (FireWire), only made by Apple.

There is definitely something wrong with the Amazon pages. For instance, your link shows Nomad Zen 40GB at #11 and no iPod in top 100, but All Jukeboxes [amazon.com] places iPod at #1 and #2, while Jukeboxes up to 15GB [amazon.com] has 7 iPod models in the top 18 best sellers.

It's not native but it works. I don't want to get into the debate about file formats but I will tell you the experience with an iPod is far superior to any other player I've tried--perhaps good enough to switch formats.

Oh my God, how could Jobs and Apple have overlooked this? Man without Ogg support they are pretty much finished that's for sure, say goodbye to the reign of the iPod folks.

Why didn't you write and tell them that they were gonna miss out on your business? At least we stood a chance of saving them then.

Still, it's their fault I suppose, if they choose to ignore such an industry BEHEMOTH as Ogg Vorbis, what chance could they ever stand.

Seriously though, nobody wants to hear you whine self-righteously about a situation you actively chose and worked at to get yourself in. I'm sure Ogg Vorbis is great, it's not the codec I have a problem with, it's with people who whine about products not supporting it when, to be honest, there isn't the market pressure there.

It's like me going and running a RISC-OS machine, and then *EVERY* time someone releases software for the Mac or PC I chime in going "Pfft, no RISC-OS support? Oh, my, God. Well, looks like Microsoft/Apple/Macromedia/Adobe won't be getting my business then. [Nose-In-Air]"

In summary, Ogg Vorbis may be great, however there is little market pressure for supporting it, so stop whining.

Out of curiousity, have you ever looked at the guts of, say, a laptop vs. a desktop? How about actually opening up an iPod? How good are you with a screwdriver and a magnifying glass? Furthermore, where are you going to find the drives capable of fitting in these devices? The reason these are not upgradable is that each device is carefully custom-designed (thanks Johnathon!) pushing the absolute limit of "how much stuff can we cram in this tiny space." If you wanted an upgradable device, you can certainly build one with off the shelf parts -- it's called a PC.

I've got a half-dozen minitowers here in my office that I've re/built over the years, as well as several "up on blocks in the yard". There's a couple of notebooks I've kept on lifesupport over the years by netbooting, running "headless", etc. after scavenging them for parts or pushing them over the edge with overzealous experiments inside their cases. I remember building my first phone, with a rotary dial, and hooking it up to my stereo as a mic'ed speakerphone. Apple is getting the HDs from somewhere, as a

I have approx 2.5 gigs of music. My collection is pretty stagnant. I do not want a 10+gig iPod because I will never fill it with music. I already have a portable firewire drive so I don't really need the iPod for that. I can not justify paying $300+ for a super walkman, but I would pay $100-$150 for one.

Also, I know my neices and nephews will ALL get one of these $100 miniPods(if true). They currently do now own a single iPod betwee